Afghanistan's
Taliban regime isn't able to resist the United States as initial bombing
wiped out their air defenses and the U.S. pounds away day and night
destroying whatever the Taliban have, but ABC's David Wright isn't
sure who is winning the war. He concluded a Monday night story from inside
Afghanistan by declaring on World News Tonight: "So far this is a war
without any clear-cut victories or defeats."

Wright's October 15 analysis came after he
relayed how Taliban troops say they "are still alive and well-armed
and that the bombing isn't fazing them. 'We just laugh at these
bombs,' one of the Taliban escorts said."

Following a story from John McWethy at the
Pentagon about U.S. damage claims and how Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld dismissed the charge that the U.S. has killed 200 civilians, as
he called the Taliban "accomplished liars," anchor Peter
Jennings cautioned: "Afghanistan, as you know, is still largely out
of bounds to reporters, which makes it harder to assess how much damage
the U.S. bombing campaign is doing and very hard to assess what the
Taliban is doing and whether they are telling the truth about various
incidents. ABC's David Wright reports tonight from a place called
Jabul-Saraj, just north of Kabul."

Wright maintained, as transcribed by MRC
analyst Brad Wilmouth: "When Taliban soldiers escorted foreign
journalists to the outskirts of Jalalabad, they said civilians had been
killed here. They said Taliban troops are still alive and well-armed and
that the bombing isn't fazing them. 'We just laugh at these bombs,'
one of the Taliban escorts said."

Wright then aired a soundbite from an
"ABC reporter" who "was there" but whose name I could
not begin to imagine how to spell, but who certainly seemed to be Arab and
did not speak English. The on-screen subtitle read: "They said
Americans are hiding. They are throwing bombs from a height, and they
won't come face to face, you know, to the Afghans."

Moving on to how U.S. food drops were
appreciated, Wright noted: "As for the U.S. efforts to befriend
people, those American food packets rained from the skies in parts of
Northern Afghanistan this weekend. People walked for miles to get them.
'I don't know how to use these packages because I can't read,'
says this woman. 'I only know it's food.' And from the leaders of
the key opposition force, the Northern Alliance, a confusing message. Some
commanders still vow they'll be marching on Kabul any day now. Today the
alliance's political leaders weren't so sure."
Dr. Abdullah
Abdullah, Northern Alliance spokesman: "One cannot rule out that
idea, but it doesn't meaning moving large number of military forces and
military hardware into Kabul."
Wright
observed: "For the moment, these troops aren't moving at all. Most
are parked in their trenches."

Back on camera, Wright then concluded:
"It's early days, but so far this is a war without any clear-cut
victories or defeats. That's true of the bombings and of the battle for
public sympathy."

Dan
Rather specifically noted the ingratitude of Saudi Arabia as he
highlighted on Monday night how, "in public criticism of the United
States, which saved his country from Saddam Hussein, one Saudi prince said
the bombing in Afghanistan quote, 'does not please us at all.'"

Rather's observation followed a story on the
Saudi ties of the September 11 terrorists. Rather added after the October
15 piece aired:
"While
Saudi Arabia's royal family says it sees Osama bin Laden as an enemy and
the United States as an ally, Saudi Arabia formerly backed the Taliban and
Saudi Arabia's support for the war on terrorism has been weak. In public
criticism of the United States, which saved his country from Saddam
Hussein, one Saudi prince said the bombing in Afghanistan quote, 'does
not please us at all.'"

Adopting
Taliban propaganda as reality, in a 60 Minutes interview aired Sunday
night with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Lesley Stahl
contended: "As we continue to bomb and as we continue to have
missiles go off course and hit civilians" we are
"instigating," in Muslim nations, "a growing sense that
we're bullies."

Stahl posed a series of hostile questions to
Rice which were all based on the premise that the U.S. must justify its
actions to Muslim people. MRC analyst Brian Boyd took down some of her
inquiries made on the October 14 show.

Stahl worried: "Now the other night the
President said that we are smoking al-Qaeda out of the caves. One of Osama
bin Laden's goals has been to instigate a war between the West and Islam.
We have seen demonstrations growing, spreading all across that region. Is
it possible that some how he has smoked us out, that he has gotten us into
this situation that he set out to get us into?"

Next, Stahl argued: "I haven't seen a
single demonstration in that part of the world for us. I haven't seen that
the people are rising up and saying, 'oh yes, it's wonderful that we're
going to root him out.' And in fact, I just keep hearing more and more of
this spreading hatred for us."

When Rice pointed out that the demonstrators
number in the thousands in nations with millions of residents, Stahl
countered: "Well, with all due
respect, it does seem that the populations of these countries as we
continue to bomb and as we continue to have missiles go off course and hit
civilians, that we are instigating not less, or support for us, but a
growing sense that we're bullies."

Stahl did not cite any evidence for her
assumption that "we continue to have missiles go off course and hit
civilians," but was probably referring to a Taliban claim denied on
Monday by the Pentagon which suggested the damage to a village was really
caused by armaments exploding and burning in an underground bunker.

Having just helped spread one myth herself,
Stahl demanded to know what the administration was doing to correct
another one: "The idea that we have no choice but to go in, I think,
is one universally felt in this country. But at the same time we watch and
have a feeling that we are losing the propaganda war. You say people know
that Osama bin Laden went against Islam and hurt innocent people in this
country, it seems from what I'm reading that a lot of people if not most
people in that part of the world think the Israelis did this operation.
This myth is out there. How do you reach, how do you engage in a
propaganda war when they don't even think Osama bin Laden did this?"

Three
weeks after he belittled President Bush as "not too bright" for
saying terrorist "harbors won't be safe" when Afghanistan is
"landlocked," an insult for which he later apologized upon
acknowledging he was wrong in assuming Bush meant Afghanistan had a
seaport, Rooney made another error.

This past Sunday he insisted that he
remembered U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1993. But President Clinton didn't
lead the Persian Gulf War which really took place in 1991.

This past Sunday, October 14, over video from
cameras inside planes showing bombs landing, and with "January
1993" on screen over it, Rooney asserted: "It's been satisfying
to know we're bombing the hell out of the Taliban. We all like that. I
remember though, how pleased we were in 1993 when the Pentagon showed us
pictures of our bombs dropping on Iraq. We were going to bomb Saddam
Hussein into oblivion. Well, that didn't happen, did it? We made more
enemies than we eliminated there."

When in
doubt, blame the right. In this case, for Anthrax. In an October 15 New
York Times story, reporter Felicity Barringer approvingly quoted an
official at Harvard University who suggested foreign terrorists may not be
behind the Anthrax sent to media outlets since the U.S. media "has
not been a particular target of Islamic fundamentalist groups or groups we
associate with Sept. 11. It has been a target of right-wing groups in
America."

The quote, MRC Communications Director Liz
Swasey noticed, appeared in a story headlined, "New Tactic of
Terrorists Is to Attack Messengers." Barringer relayed:
"Who did
it? The timing, and the continuing threats from Osama bin Laden's network,
Al Qaeda, make that group an easy suspect. In an appearance on Friday on
the PBS program, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Vice President Dick Cheney
noted that Mr. bin Laden's group trained its followers to use chemical and
biological weapons. Implying a link between Mr. bin Laden and the anthrax
incidents, he said, 'Again, we have not completed the investigation and
maybe it's a coincidence, but I must say I'm a skeptic.'
"Juliette
N. Kayyem, the executive director of the program on domestic preparedness
at the Kennedy School [at Harvard University], was more cautious. So far,
little is known, she said. 'We shouldn't go into this with blinders on
trying to link this to Sept. 11.'
"The
media, she said, 'has not been a particular target of Islamic
fundamentalist groups or groups we associate with Sept. 11. It has been a
target of right-wing groups in America.' The one thing that Islamic
radicals and American right-wing radicals have in common, she added, is a
paranoid belief that American media outlets are pawns in a worldwide
Jewish conspiracy. And one of the letters that has been a focus of the
anthrax investigation in Florida came with a Star of David
inside.'"

While it is true that a few in the U.S., who
are well outside of mainstream politics, have an anti-Jewish hatred and
paranoia, the Times article reflected the left's view of the political
spectrum by tying them to the right. Never forget that the Nazis were the
National "Socialist" Party.

The United States needs to be "humble" in international
affairs because of the resentment its wealth and power inspire, Ted Turner
said Wednesday.

Turner, the AOL Time Warner vice chairman, displayed his garrulous and
sometimes profane style in offering pointed advice during a one-hour
speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Because poverty and hopelessness can breed terrorism, Turner said,
"If you're rich and powerful, you better be nice, and humble.... You
can get a lot more cooperation out of people if they like you."

Recent events seem to prove that "the United States has a real
good chance now of being more involved in the world," he said.

"As soon as the Cold War ended, we once again, to a large degree,
withdrew from international affairs," Turner said. "And as the
world's sole superpower, we left a tremendous vacuum in the world."

The 62-year-old billionaire, who founded CNN in 1980, also said the
United States mishandled events leading up to the current crisis.

The United States, Turner said, "considered Osama bin Laden and
the Taliban as heroes" a little more than a decade ago, when it
backed Afghan rebels with more than $1 billion to fight the Soviet Union.

When Soviet forces withdrew, he said, the United States left the
country to its own devices, which allowed the Taliban to impose its
present regime.

But Turner also said that U.S. officials don't deserve all the blame
for America's disengagement.

After the Persian Gulf War, he said, "The United States, to a
large degree, turned insular, and I've accused the media of being
partially responsible."

Turner criticized the closing of overseas bureaus by both broadcast and
print media...

Turner has no role anymore in running CNN, a
fact evidenced by how CNN displays a U.S. flag on screen, something Turner
surely would never have allowed for fear of offending the international
audience and showing allegiance to one nation over all others.

Former
Time magazine reporter Nina Burleigh, who is most famous for expressing
the view that she "would be happy to give him [Bill Clinton] a blow
job just to thank him for keeping abortion legal" since
"American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads
on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs,"
is now concerned about how too much patriotism in the war against Osama
bin Laden's theocracy has caused reporters to lose "their urge to
be unbiased."

Reviewing a Close Up Foundation session with
college students conducted October 10 on terrorism coverage, shown by
C-SPAN on October 12, MRC analyst Patrick Gregory caught this criticism
from Burleigh about patriotism in the news media: "I think the events
of September 11 unhinged people to such a degree that they, many people
lost their, temporarily one hopes, lost their urge to be unbiased."

That's an "urge" Burleigh lost
long ago.

Just last week in her TomPaine.com commentary
she expounded on left-wing fantasies. She wondered "whether 6,000
Americans might prove to have died in New York for the royal family of
Saud, or oil, or both." She suggested President Bush is only going
after terrorism because of "how Big Oil might benefit from a cleanup
of terrorists and other anti-American elements in the Central Asia
region." After reviewing the business ties of Bush's father and his
buddies to oil-rich nations in the region, Burleigh ominously warned:
"It doesn't add up to a conspiracy theory. But it does mean there is
a significant MONEY subtext that the American public ought to know
about."

Sign up for
CyberAlerts:
Keep track of the latest instances of media bias and alerts to stories the major media are ignoring. Sign up to receive
CyberAlerts via e-mail.

Subscribe!

Enter your email to join MRC CyberAlert today!

questions and comments about
CyberAlert
subscription

You can also learn what has been posted each day on the MRC's Web site by subscribing to the "MRC Web Site News" distributed every weekday afternoon. To subscribe, go to:
http://www.mrc.org/newsletters

FIND OUT MORE

CONNECT WITH US

The mission of the Media Research Center is to create a media culture in America where truth and liberty flourish. The MRC is a research and education organization operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and contributions to the MRC are tax-deductible.